Craughwell is a pretty and
developing village on the main N6 Galway to Dublin road,
within 16 miles of the heart of Galway city. It incorporates
the half parish of Ballymana. While agriculture is still the
single, largest means of livelihood in the community,
Craughwell is becoming a dormitory village for those whose
place of employment is Galway city.

It is noted for its
neatness and its village green has a statue of Lady Augusta
Gregory, a founding member of the Irish National Theatre.
The village also celebrates its connection with the Gaelic
poet Anthony Raferty (1784 — 1834).

Other noted people associated with Craughwell include John
and Angelica Huston of Cinematic fame who lived for a period
in the old mansion of St. Clerans nearby, birth place of
Robert O' Hara Burke, the first explorer to cross Australia
from south to north. Craughwell is also home to the famous
Galway 'Blazers' Hunt.

The Dunkellin River, which draws its waters from the
Killimordaly bog and the Loughrea lake, provides coarse
fishing in its lower reaches. This river widens into the
large Rahasane Turlough, which is the home of many species
of wild birds, especially waders, which winter there. The
land is reasonably flat, with the only relatively high
portion on Seefin Hill in the South-East of the parish.

Anthony Raferty (1784 — 1834)
A native of Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Ó Raifteiri was blinded
by smallpox as a child. He lived by playing his fiddle and
performing his songs and poems in the mansions of the
Anglo-Irish gentry. His work, which draws on the forms and
idiom of Irish folk poetry, is widely regarded as marking
the end of the literary tradition of the bardic schools.
None of his poems were written down during the poet's
lifetime, but they were collected from those he taught them
to by Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory and others, who later
published them.

Ó Raifteiri's most enduring poems include Eanach Dhuin, Cill
Aodain which are still learned by Irish schoolchildren.
Although many people think it is he who wrote ' "Mise
Raifteirí an File" it was in fact written in America toward
the end of the 19th C by Seán O Ceallaigh. The first four
lines of Mise Raifteiri an File appeared on the reverse of
the Series C Irish five pound note.